The Tale of the Unexpected 29-hour Road Trip of 2017
It all began on a hot spring day.
"Can we meet up to talk about some logistics for the Year in Review?" As soon as the question popped into the group text between me, the Collegian's creative director, and the managing editor, my stomach sank. The Year in Review, our first foray into the long-awaited dream of our creative director to produce an end-of-the-year magazine, was set to begin and end production that week and be printed and shipped a week after that. We were already on a tight schedule, with the launch party for the magazine written in stone for the day after the shipment was supposed to arrive.
A couple of hours later, on the steps of Asbury University's student center, our creative director spoke the words I'd been dreading. "Basically, we might have to drive to Minnesota if we want to have it here on time." There had been a miscommunication about shipping details, and our Minnesota-based printer was going to charge us an extra $800, plus it still might not arrive on time, if we went the traditional shipping route.
I, being the type of duty-bound person that I am, was not going to let anything jeopardize the launch party that I'd already promised our faculty advisor would be amazing. Nothing was going to let me fail, not even a cross-country road trip.
"So how long is the drive?" Half of me didn't want to know, the other half was calculating how many skips I'd used in my Tuesday classes.
"Twelve hours. . .I've got a big trunk, and I should be able to stop and sleep some along the way." Our creative director, selfless as he is, was actually trying to reason that since the shipping mix-up was his fault, he should have to drive the whole way himself.
"What if we just let everyone pre-order them at the launch party?" Our managing editor, usually being the most sane one of the group, was desperately trying to steer me and the creative director away from the inevitable.
"We can't have a launch party for something that isn't there." I leaned back in my seat, sighing. "Now, we just have to find someone with an SUV."
"Well, you're young enough to do something this crazy." The words of the Collegian's faculty advisor rang in my head as I packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into a cooler the day we were leaving for the trip.
This was crazy, I thought a million times that day, and a million more as I arrived at the semi-circle outside of the library at 8:00 p.m. sharp on Monday. Our web editor had been roped into our escapades, equally due to his unending effervescent energy and his Ford Escape. As per usual, our managing editor jogged up fifteen minutes late, toting a Ziplock bag of homemade peanut butter energy bites and essential oils in her backpack. After a flurry of texts and unanswered calls, our creative director joined us thirty minutes late, and energy high, we set off on the open road.
We'd already agreed that the people in the backseat should sleep while the driver and navigator stayed awake. With over 24 hours of driving to be done, we knew we'd need to rotate drivers. My managing editor and I got the first shift in the back. Bless her soul, that girl can sleep. At the ripe old hour of 10 p.m, she already was curled against the window, eyes closed.
I've always liked driving at night, when there are so few cars on the road that each pair of headlights seems to be a comrade in your journey. And with all of your surroundings cloaked in shadow, the time seems to zip by as visible landmarks are few and far between. Before we knew it, we hit Indianapolis, the excitement rising at the first milestone in our trip. Our managing editor groggily peeled her eyes open, raising up her phone to document the skyline of the city on Snapchat with the caption, "In Chicago!" before promptly going back to sleep.
Somewhere outside of Indianapolis is where I had my first near death experience. We stopped for gas, stumbling bleary eyed into the gas station for Cokes and restroom use, returning to the metal prison of the car. I was finally starting to feel sleepy since it was around midnight, and I'd closed my eyes as we pulled off towards the interstate.
Suddenly, I was aware we were going way too fast. My eyes shot open, and I felt the car fishtail around a curve. The headlights illuminated a pole. Right in our trajectory. We were going to crash.
Our web editor has many skills other than web editing, and that night, he showed his skill not only for taking a poorly lit ramp too fast, but also for regaining control of his car. We stopped a foot away from the pole, all screaming and very much awake and very much alive.
But our adventure wasn't over yet: about a minute after being back on the interstate, our web editor asked, "What's that sound?" It was the hood. Slowly being raised and lowered by the wind. Because it had come unlatched. My mind immediately flashed to all the action movies with car chase sequences I'd ever seen, where the hood gets blown open and the car starts swerving madly before crashing and bursting into a ball of flame.
No flames for us—proving to be immeasurably brave, our web editor pulled onto the shoulder, semi-trucks whizzing by in way-too-close proximity, and re-latched the hood. We were safe once again.
I was still wide awake when we hit the hundreds of red blinking lights outside of Chicago. We were all mesmerized by their synchronization and the sheer quantity. They were alien after staring so long at the shapeless black countryside. Our creative director explained what we couldn't see now: they were hundreds of windmills. With a definition in my mind, I could squint and just make out the spinning blades illuminated by the red glow of the blinking lights as we passed them.
Our managing editor awoke again, asking, "I thought we already passed Chicago?" as we entered the city. I watched the subway pull off, weary 2 a.m. travelers embarking to be transported home or to work. We paid random $3.40 tolls. After passing through Chicago, we switched drivers, and I sat in the front seat, hoping our managing editor had gotten enough sleep to keep her eyes on the road. By four, she bailed to the back seat and let our web editor take over again.
With maybe an hour of sleep under my belt, I felt my eyes drifting closed. Each time they fell shut, they were harder to reopen. We'd entered Minnesota, and the sun was rising, illuminating the world with a pastel pink glow. Lakes, mountains, and unique coniferous trees dotted the landscape. We hadn't stopped for over five or ten minutes for the past ten hours, and the fatigue was slamming me in the face. Eventually, I succumbed, and when I reawakened, we were being pelted with rain, and we were in Chanhassen.
I don't blame the worker at the loading docks of Smartpress for eyeing the group of disheveled college students who stumbled out of a Ford Escape in the pouring rain that day. The space was filled with large semi-trucks and cargo containers. Even I didn't know if we would be able to fit the 750 copies—30 boxes—of The Year in Review in our little SUV. The four of us and the worker crammed box upon box in the trunk. We lowered one of the back seats. We piled the boxes up to the ceiling.
And miraculously, they all fit.
There was a wall of cardboard pressing into my side at all times, but we had somehow done the impossible. "You all aren't driving straight back to Kentucky, are you?" the worker asked, a concerned look on his face. We all nodded. The adrenaline of finally getting to Minnesota was fading, replaced by the prospect of being in that car for another 12 hours. So we did what any group of hungry, tired people would do: we got breakfast food.
We ooed and awed over the Review, and how perfect it was—aside from the copy that our creative director bled on, I stepped on, our managing editor spilled juice on, and the sky rained on. We knew we didn't have time to waste, but we deserved our leisurely waffles, eggs, and bacon.
It was hard to leave that IHOP, but this trip was only half over.
These are the laws of the road trip: on the way up, you're excited to reach your destination and you're energized by the knowledge that you're going on an adventure—on the way back, you've forgotten what life outside of the car is like and seemingly nothing makes the time pass faster. Truthfully, I slept most of the way back (and so did our managing editor, no surprise there), but it was fitful, pressed against the wall of boxes, my neck cramped at an unnatural angle.
For dinner, I knew we needed to get out of that car. We came to a rest stop and pulled off to eat our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, unexpectedly finding ourselves at a decked out stop, complete with a playground and picnic benches. The sun felt good, the fresh air even better. We could pretend, just for a moment, that we didn't have to get back in the car.
By hour 24, it felt as if I had bed sores from sitting down for so long. Our managing editor had a mental breakdown and started doing yoga in a closed gas station's parking lot. Once we hit Ohio, it was almost unbearable to sit, to sleep—to do anything except jump out of the window. Even a Nutella milkshake and fries from Steak n' Shake could not cure our woes.
I thought hour 28 would break me. We were in familiar territory. So close, yet so far away. The last dying gasps of our adventure.
Finally, 29 hours later, we returned to where we had begun our journey. To the welcoming silent campus of Asbury we arrived at 2 a.m. Wednesday, broken and world-weary, bearing the bounty of Smartpress. And we lived to tell about it.
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